


The Truth that Kills the Silence

by starstag



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Brothers, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Platonic Love, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22995385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstag/pseuds/starstag
Summary: Will contemplates the nature of his friendship with Thomas Blake when he and his brother receive some surprising good news. It turns out his journey isn't quite over.
Relationships: Joseph Blake & Tom Blake, Lance Corporal Schofield & Lance Corporal Blake, Tom Blake & William Schofield
Comments: 16
Kudos: 64





	The Truth that Kills the Silence

The mess tent was not quiet. Far from it, in fact, and under the constant waves of chatter there was the wind in the leaves, the grass, and perhaps if you listened hard enough, there was the far off, near imperceptible fall of shells. You felt it more than you heard it, in your chest or in the soles of your feet. 

No, the mess tent was not quiet, but it might as well have been. 

William Schofield sat in the midst of it, face blank, gaze distant, a plate of uneaten food resting before him as he watched the angle of the shadows change. Time to think, time to breathe at last. He never would have guessed how utterly paralyzing it was. Thinking was hard enough, and with the way his thoughts kept turning...well, were it not for the pulsing pain in his head, he would have long since sought out the refuge of sleep. 

Strange, how some friendships just became. Non-existent one day, and an integral part of your life the other. Perhaps that was how Blake saw it. The young man was easy to read, and Will saw the way he looked at him. 

No, for him, at least, it had not been so sudden. With all his worries and his pain, Thomas Blake should have been the last thing on his mind, yet his companionship had snuck up on him nonetheless.

It was like some half forgotten song, lovingly played on a piano partially out of tune, echoing through the empty halls after midnight. Sweet, at first, of passing interest, but the more you thought about it, the harder it became to ignore. And then? Then it was arresting and beautiful and encompassing for as long as it lasted.

Not that he’d say it, of course. Never aloud. Blake knew how he felt, and he knew as well as he could understand himself, and anybody else who mattered should have been able to see it, so there was no reason to speak about it so candidly.

With a jolt, he realized he could not pinpoint the exact point when he had started to consider Blake a friend. It was so important, how could he not know. Squinting down at his cold plate, he rubbed a small circle in the center of his forehead and strained his mind back. It hurt, to force it, but this was important. The same urgency that had him leaping from bridges and running across battlefields had taken hold of him, and he needed to know. 

He’d heard the boy singing.  
Yes, that was it. 

Of course, of course, in hindsight he wasn’t ever just an annoying recruit. He was a man, as complex as Will himself, but he’d wanted so badly to dislike him it had been hard to see past that. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he was just a frightened young man, missing home yet determined to make a name for himself. 

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he was as scared as Will was. It shouldn’t have been shocking that he just wanted to be liked, and yet in a way it was. He could clearly remember sitting there, in the back, his mouth falling slightly ajar as he just stared and listened. He was good at singing, Will had been forced to admit. In that moment, he could easily imagine his voice echoing in the vaulted halls of a cathedral, or ringing out through the fields on a spring day. And the lightness that washed over his face: for a moment, the boy was really, truly happy. 

So after that, Will quietly began to let Blake into his presence. 

“Schofield? Will?” His name. He turned slowly, and there was a man standing behind him, staring so intensely he felt as if he should look away. Again, for a moment, his mind replaced the man’s face with Tom’s but the uniform was wrong. He was too old.

“Blake.” he said. His voice had a rough, weary edge to it. It cracked halfway through the word.

There was a sorrow behind his eyes, an impossible weariness, but he sat and cleared his throat softly. “Please, Joe is fine. For now.”

“Joe.” he repeated, rolling the word across his tongue. How many times had he heard Tom say it? It sounded different coming from his mouth.

“How are you doing?” He didn’t answer, and pushed at his food, pretending that he had been at least trying to eat it.

“What are you doing here?” Two questions, the second more forceful. He breathed in, tried to sit straight, tried to act like he was doing alright.

“I was thinking.” his lip quivered, breaking the sentence off there as he struggled to keep from crying. “I was thinking about Tom. About how we became friends.”

“Ah.” Joe said after a long moment. His eyes were red again, red and glossy, and he turned his head away as if that would help, as if Will didn't notice. He pretended not to. In profile, he was so like Tom, and he could imagine him smiling and joyful.

It had been fast, then, after he’d realized he’d taken a liking to the young man.  
He really shouldn’t have been shocked, but it wasn’t long before Blake noticed this, and he was being assaulted head-on by his stories and his company. Not that he minded, not really, but it happened faster than he had intended. If Blake had noticed this, or thought anything of it, he didn’t say. He just seemed pleased that Will let him anywhere near. 

Sometimes, Will would catch him just sitting with him. He’d creep off from his other friends, and come and tell Will some ridiculous tale, and then at the end he’s sigh in what he guessed to be contentment and just...sit with him. 

Did the young man find him calming? Comforting? Safe? He was confused, yes, but he never quite worked up the courage to ask, so he let it happen.

In time, he, too, found a strange sense of quiet ease slip over him when in Tom’s presence. From their initial stiff interactions, they fell into an easy banter, and that was that. He just woke up one day and realized they were friends, which kept him lying motionless as he stared at his own hand while he mulled it over. 

At last, he decided, it was alright. Being friends with Thomas Blake didn’t sound too bad after all, and there wasn’t much he could do about it at that point. The boy had won. If he had to suffer through endless tales about his dog and his mother and his brother for that strange sense of comfort that Blake brought out, he was willing to pay the price. Besides, he couldn't lie and say he didn’t think his stories were usually pretty funny. He was just like that, Tom. Such a natural sense of humor.

“I would have liked to see him.” Blake’s voice dissolved his thoughts again. He was forcing a weak smile. “I can see how you two would have gotten along.”

It must have been a lie, at least partly. What did Joe see in him that Tom would possibly like? He was a wreck, barely able to stand to speak, wet and muddy, bloody and ragged and crying. Oh god, he really was crying, the tears just streaking down his face silently. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d started. 

“What time is it?” He asked lamley. Blake looked surprised. His gaze darted from his eyes to the side of his head to his chest and down to the hand resting on the table.  
“I-” He checked his watch. “Just after noon.”

How long had it been, then? How long since the river, since the night, since the dreamlike passage of flares across the sky, since Blake had died in his arms and he’d been pulled away and his body been placed in the back of a truck with a dozen wounded men? How long? Nearly a day, then?

He’d looked too small, then. Too young. Maybe now, juxtaposed to his brother, Will was only just becoming aware of how young he was. He’d joked about it before. A sad joke, ‘age before beauty.’ Now it just seemed cruel. 

“Alright there, Will?” Joe was leaning across the table, squinting at him. 

He wasn't alright, of course not. Obviously not, neither of them were, least of all him. By then, he was already nodding his head and the words yes, i’m fine were rising in his throat.

Before he could respond, there was the sharp clearing of a throat. Joe offered a sad, apologetic smile and turned to look up at the soldier that had addressed him. 

Painfully, Will twisted his neck around and squinted up at the man. He did not have a particularly memorable face: narrow, adorned with a moustache. His whole profile was pale and somewhat sharp. Will caught the strange look the soldier shot him before clearing his throat again loudly. 

“Lieutenant Blake? I’ve been sent here to find one lieutenant Blake?”

He nodded gently, understandingly, as if nothing was wrong. Will could see, though. He could see the blankness behind that calm smile, the tension in his neck and shoulders. “Yes?” He said, “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a message for you.” The man was neat and clean and could stand with his head high. Will looked away.

“There’s a man asking after Lance Corporal Schofield, if he’s still here. Asking after his state.”

“Oh, Schofield? He’s here, he’s fine. The 8th asking?”

The man shook his head. “No, there’s a Lance Corporal up at the clearing center up the road. Wouldn’t stop trying to leave his bed till they promised to send a man to see after this Schofield. Said they were sent here together, to warn the Devons. One Lance Corporal Blake, if I remember. You two related?”

It was like an electric shock had run through him. He went stiff, as if entangled in wire, clinging to every word. His body was strained and shaking, every ounce of energy flushed away for a brief second by a desperate energy. Hope flooded his thoughts, an idiotic hope, but it was relentless and his breathing quickened as he raised his gaze to stare at the man who was speaking impossible truths.

The messenger, previously so poised, yelped as Joe lunged forward, taking him by the shoulders. “Lance Corporal Blake? Was that his name? Are you sure? Thomas Blake?”

The man balked, obviously rattled. “Yeah, yeah, Sir. Tom Blake, Sounds right.”

“Tom?” Will couldn’t ignore that. On shaking legs, he pushed himself to his feet right beside Joe, and stared at the poor man down. His gaze flickered between them in obvious confusion. “Tom’s dead, you’ve got it wrong. But I made it. I...I found the Devons.”

The man chuckled nervously. “Dead? Nah, mate, poor sod lost a lot of blood. He’s not making much sense, but he was still kicking last I saw. Making enough of a fuss to send me down here.”

Joe’s hands were still knotted into the fabric of his jacket and he gave him a shake. “You’re sure? Thomas Blake is alive? Lance Corporal Blake of the 8th-”

“Yeah, I’m sure!” he yelped, drawing back as soon as Joe released him. “I can get a message to him, if you’d like.”

Quickly, Joe glanced at Will with a look that was all too familiar. Tom got that look, when he was thinking. More specifically, he got it when he was planning something, and had set his mind to it, and nothing would be changing his course. “No.” he said quickly. “I’ve a man from the 8th, Schofield here, who needs to be seen by a doctor. Best set him back up with Lance Corporal blake, but I won’t send him alone. He’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Captain? He’s standing, you sure he can’t just stay here?”

“No.” Joe set his jaw. “No, he needs to be with Tom, and he needs to see a doctor. And I’m coming with him to make sure he’s alright. We’ll go back with you.”

The man shrugged and imperceptibly rolled his eyes. “Right then. What’s wrong with him anyway?”

Leaving the food on the table, Joe quickly began to follow the man, but not before grabbing Will but the arm to lead him away. His grip was hard and suddenly, and his stride was long and fast. Will found it very hard to keep up. “Struck in the head, I believe. And he’s got a nasty wound on his hand. And I’ll wager he hasn’t slept or eaten in a day or more.”

Will nodded along. It was all true enough, and hearing it all listed out made him turn the memory of the past day over in his head. It seemed impossible, really, that so much could have befallen a single man. “Collapsing tunnel. Rocks, too. And the river.” He supplemented wearily. 

Joe gave him a long look, one begging for an explanation, but he seemed to think better of it. “Yes.” he waved his hand. “That too.”

“Hm.” The man mumbled. They were wading through the grass, again. Past the tree. Behind, he knew, were the channels carved of white rock. The dust still clung to his coat, turned to sticky mud by the moisture. “That would explain the look in his eyes, huh?”

What look? Will thought. He didn’t voice it aloud, but the commend didn’t leave his head as they made their way back to the forest. What did he look like? A ghost? A dead man walking? Could the other soldiers, upon looking at him, even begin to comprehend what had happened to him? 

The forest was as he remembered, brighter, perhaps, in the afternoon sun. This time, he was not alone. Blake’s hand was on his arm, steadying him. Like in the mine, but a different Blake, a different place. I’m retracing my steps. He thought absently, until all of the sudden they turned at a fork and they weren't. He couldn’t help but worry about the baby, then. If it was alright. If he’d ever see it again.

“Sir.” The messenger was speaking again, and Will could only just make out the words. “Is he related to you?”

Joe paused, his feet thumping softly on the carpet of the forest floor. “Yes.” he responded after a long moment. “He’s my brother.”

Brother. The word rang brightly in his mind as he counted his steps in fours, unable to keep track longer than that. What was Blake to him? A friend, a brother, a-

“Watch your step.” Joe was saying, pulling Will across a shallow stream. The messenger huffed at being interrupted. Were they still speaking? Had they ever stopped? He struggled to listen, but the words all muddled together, like the swaying trees, like the waving of the grass. 

“Are you doing alright?” Joe had stopped, the hold on his wrist had loosened, and he had taken Will’s arm over his shoulder in an attempt to support more of his weight. “We’re almost there.”

He mumbled something noncommittal as the soldier glared back at the two of them, frustrated with the delay.

“Come on.” He huffed. “We’re almost on the road.” Will looked up at that. Sure enough, the forest sloped down and opened up on fields and a muddy road down the center, weaving a dark line between the hills. Was it the same road as before? Caught up in trying to figure it out, he barely noticed they were moving again until he felt Joe’s chest expand against his side. 

The man was almost carrying him. He stumbled along like that for a moment before his mind caught up and he thought better of it, taking his own weight into his exhausted legs with a half-hearted mumbled apology. His feet dragged clumsily, bumping into roots and rocks, and he couldn’t find the strength to pick them up. Standing was enough effort, and keeping his eyes open made his head clench and ache.

More than anything else, it didn’t feel real. He couldn’t focus on anything, not the man in front of him, not the trees or the road, not Joe’s words to him. When had it stopped being real? Was he dead in the lockhouse? In the river? In the woods? The Devons were real, were they not? He’d done it, he’d stopped the attack because Blake could not.

That was where it got so unbearably confusing that he had to shut his eyes. He remembered the blood on his hands, the scent in his nose, Blake’s pale, scared face looking back at his. He’d run from ecouste, nearly drowned in the river, stumbled through the woods because Blake was dead and couldn’t find his brother and he had to do it for him. Alone.

Except, apparently, he wasn’t. Simultaneously, he was dead and alive. In The same breath, Will knew he had to have died in his arms behind a burning barn, but of course not. Blake smiled and laughed and told funny stories and made Will happy. He was young and handsome and had so much to offer, and that wasn’t the kind of person that just died, not like that. Or was it? He was gone, he had to be, but now this strange man was saying different and Joe, who looked so much like Tom it was painful, was hauling him across the quiet countryside.

The contradiction made his head hurt. It was hard to see him living, and even worse to think of him dead. Now, his own death, that was too easy to imagine. He could picture it in a hundred different ways, just in the past day: crushed beneath the rocks, dead from the pilot or the fire, the shot in the lockhouse, the fall down the stairs, the river the woods, the Devons and the battlefield. His own mortality was easy to confront, but the life and death of Thomas Blake? That was nearly impossible to consider. 

With a sudden burst of shame and confusion, he ducked out from Joe’s grasp, absently smoothing his jacket as he looked away. It was damp in the pockets still, and the tin against his breast was as cold as ever. 

The pace considerably slowed with nobody to help him along. The messenger sighed and huffed loud enough for Will to hear, but Joe was patient, pausing every few strides to look back at him with a sad expression that made his chest hurt.

He couldn’t seem to make his feet move quicker than a sluggish shuffle, and he no longer had the energy to try anything else.

Despite the soldier’s persistent, exasperated sighing and WIll’s leaden limp, the small group at last made it down the forested hill and across a stretch of field, each second stretching into minutes, into unbearable hours.

There was a truck waiting, much like the last. It was too similar to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming it all, letting himself repeat the previous day. The hours since dawn had been such a horrendous muddle, and the ones before hadn’t been much better. 

Joe wordlessly helped him into the back, and the messenger offered his hand as well when Joe glared at him long enough.

With a jolt, they were on their way. The rocking was hard on his aching hand, on his splitting head, and he found it increasingly difficult to remain upright, but nonetheless he turned his face towards the receding hillside. At the top, above the line of trees, he could make out the tree, and to his left, there was the river, curving away from the road as the truck puttered off between the fields.

They traveled in silence, the soft puff of his breathing accompanied by the wind and the creak and rattle of the truck around him. He let his eyes slip closed. It only calmed the unbearable pressure in his skull slightly, but it was better than nothing at all. 

It wasn’t long before the lean soldier sitting across from him cleared his throat loudly. It was a long moment before he heard Joe respond. Without the similarity of his face to distract him, he noticed Joe sounded quite different than brother. His voice was deeper, quieter. He spoke more slowly. “Yes?”

“He’s gonna be ok? You’re mate there?”

“Oh.” He felt Joe shift beside him. “I don’t know. I think so.” They thought he was asleep. It was strange, to hear them talking about him in such a manner. He could almost feel Joe leaning over him, inspecting his head. “He took a blow to the back of his skull, I saw. Well, I didn’t see it happen, but I saw the damage. And there’s this....thing, on his hand. I think there’s more, though. He was soaked when I first met him, and there’s all this white mud caked on his uniform.”

“You mean you don’t know what happened to him?”

“No.” Joe sounded terribly sad. “We only just met. He was sent to stop the Devons attacking, and he came to find me to tell me about Tom.”

“Oh.” There was silence for a moment. “He was with your brother, then?”

Joe sounded scared when he spoke again, and Will could only imagine his face. “What happened to him? My brother? Will… Lance Corporal Schofield said he was dead, like it wasn’t even a question. Said he was with him-”

“Got stabbed, somehow.” The soldier said shortly. “I don’t know. He lost a lot of blood and was unconscious for a good long while and then woke up to kick up a fuss about you and Schofield and the Devons.”

“How is he? When you left?” There was a shuffle, and he could imagine Joe leaning in close, and the confused expression on the poor messenger’s face.

“He-he-he was alive, still.” The man stammered. “In a bad way, you understand, but he was still alive.”

That caught at Will’s heart like nettles, pulled at his mind in the most awful way. “God.” Joe choked out the word. “I can’t lose him twice.” That, perhaps, was the only way to put it. He squeezed his eyes shut harder, willing back tears, wishing he was asleep so that he didn’t have to know this, to remember this.

Suddenly, the truck rounded a hard corner and sent him toppling limply off the bench. His eyes flew open with a cry and he found himself lying in a heap on the splintery planks, his head throbbing relentlessly with a renewed vengeance, his vision swimming. 

In a second, Joe and the other soldier were beside him, hauling him into a sitting position, speaking words he couldn’t quite make out. He yelped when the messenger grasped his left hand to heave him back on the seat, and the man flinched back, looking hurt.

Joe waved him aside and extended his own hand to help him up. He misjudged the distance and his right palm closed on nothing, but Joe caught him nonetheless with a worried grunt and pulled him back onto the seat.

The grey haze of pain gradually cleared to a more manageable fog, leaving him feeling sick and dizzy. None of them spoke for a minute as he breathed and stared at the floor.

“Almost there.” The man said rather abruptly. Joe looked as if he were about to throw up. Will felt the same, only with the added sensation of a splitting headache that left him convinced he would faint if he so much as lifted a finger. With each passing second it was becoming more difficult to hold his head up, to hold his eyes open.

“I wasn’t there when they brought him in.” He looked nervous, Will thought, squinting back at the messenger. He was gripping his hands, not meeting Joe’s eyes, not even sparing a glance at him. “A captain, Captain Smith, came by with him and a whole lot of lads. Couple of injuries from German stragglers, and one boy from the 8th, with a great bloody hole in his side. Everybody was talking about it: tunic was all red, I tell you. Not a spot of white left.”

He laughed, but it was hard and uncertain. “Saw him later, of course. Pale as a sheet. But his eyes were open, then. And he was trying to speak-” he broke off with a sniff. “He seemed like a good man, Lieutenant. Determined. He seemed like a good one.”

Slumped as he was, it was impossible to see Joe’s face, but by the way his shoulders shook, he guessed he was trying not to cry.

The truck was slowing, then, and fences and sheds and rows of tents passed by sideways in his tilted vision. Dozens of faces passed, and each one he impossibly expected to be Blake. None were, and the growing ache in his eyes made him shut them again. 

The truck shuddered to a stop, shaking as the engine was cut. He squeezed his eyes shut, wondering if it was a dream, until he flinched as Joe touched a light hand to his shoulder. 

He rose slowly, as it was the only thing he could think to do, standing on his own for a second in the back of the truck, taking a moment to breathe as Joe stepped out before him.

Then he took his offered hand and stumbled to the soil, his feet falling hard on the packed earth. For a second, he was back with the Devons, frantically searching for the brother, for Tom’s brother, for Joseph Blake. But no, Blake was beside him with a stricken expression, and the clearing center was substantially quieter than the last, but no less crowded.

“Come on, then.” The messenger was a way ahead, gesturing for the pair to follow. He stood, swaying, trying to settle the ground beneath his feet. The flares at night in ecoust had been far worse, and yet now he found he was barely able to stand. 

The soldier was waiting, with Joe caught between them. Their eyes met, and for a second Will was convinced Joe was going to leave him there, wavering on his feet until his knees buckled and some poor orderly was sent to fetch the damp, dusty man collapsed in the yard.

The expression passed as soon as Will spotted it, and with a sigh Joe returned, looping one arm around his waist to support him. More of his weight was sagging into Joe than even before, but if he minded he didn’t say anything. He walked as quickly as he could, his breath coming fast and sharp. He didn’t speak at all as he followed the messenger, into a tent and down a long aisle, past men swathed in bandages, past nurses and doctors, attracting stares all the way. 

At the end, there was a bed surrounded by curtains that fluttered slightly, blurring in his vision. There was a doctor there, his back turned, and two nurses in white and blue.

The soldier leading them called out. “Found the Lance Corporal, and his brother! Brought ‘em back, too. I know it’s more than we bargained for, but the Lance Corporal’s in a bad way, and the Lieutenant Blake wanted to-.”

He didn’t bother to listen to the rest as the doctor turned and addressed the messenger and Joe. He was too busy peering past the curtains. There was a body there, blocked by the nurses, he could just make out the hand. Sagging against Joe’s arm, he pushed himself forward. He needed to see Tom alive, or else he wasn’t. Did they not understand everything he had done? Of course not. He didn’t want to speak to the nurse, he didn’t want the doctor to peer into his eyes or inspect his hand, he was only consumed by the all-encompassing need to see what was behind the curtain.

At last, the doctor and the messenger stepped silently aside and Joe released him. Together, they slipped past the curtain, one with considerably more grace than the other.

When he crossed the threshold, into the silent space around the bed, his mind could not fathom the scene. His eyes flickered to the corner, to the floors, looking for the bloodied, filth covered body of a young man whose skin had gone had gone the color of porcelain. 

Joe left him standing there, hunched over against the pain, holding his own exhausted body up through sheer force of will. He was knelt beside the bet, clutching at the body there, holding on to it as Will had grasped the branch in the river: like it was the only thing that could keep him alive. He could remember holding a man like that, heavy and wet with blood.

But the form laid out in the bed was clean, pale as milk, his hair like Joe’s, only lighter. His face is like Joe’s only younger. And slowly, rather than all at once, the pieces drifted like falling petals as they fell into place. HIs eyes grew wide, and a tiny exhalation left his mouth in a sigh, and he sank to the ground as he had fallen against the tree, listening to the singing Devon boy what felt like years ago.

Tom Blake had sat up slightly, as much as he could, and he was clutching at his brother’s shoulder, staring past, staring straight at Will.  
“Scho!” His face, worn and drained of color, grew open and bright, and he raised his hand to point weakly at Will. “Joe, you brought Schofield!”

“I did.” Joe sat back, smoothing the front of his uniform. There were tears in his eyes. “He found us, Tom. He made it.” 

Sinking into the chair at the bedside as if he could not hold his own weight, he nodded at Will to go forward. 

It requires no thought. He rose, inexplicably, as if it needed no effort, and crossed the small space until he was standing over the bed. He was shaking, he could feel it in his legs and see his quivering hands out of the corner of his blurred vision.

“Will.” Tom said, so earnestly that he nearly broke down. His knee buckled, and for a moment he was plummeting to the ground, until he wasn’t and instead found himself kneeling at the bedside, Tom’s weak hand wrapped up in his own.

“Tom.” He couldn’t think of anything better to say, so he said it with all the force and ferocity and adoration he could muster and placed his hands on the young man’s cheeks and let his fingers get tangled up in his hair.

His cheeks were warm between his hands, pale but solid and alive. He pitched forward, his head finding rest on Tom’s shoulder, buried in the clean cloth of the sheets. 

There was laughter, soft but present. “Will Schofield, when’d you take a dip? You smell like a dog that died in a millpond.” The words were music to his ears. It was Tom, his voice in his ear, his arms weakly wrapping around him. For an impossible, perfect moment he was just caught up in the bliss of reality. 

Then Tom’s overenthusiastic hand grasped the back of his scalp and he screamed. 

He didn’t know what happened in the next seconds, or even the next minutes for that matter. The blur of confusion left little room for memories. There was a doctor, he knew. A nurse with a pleasant but worried face, young enough to remind him of the woman in Ecouste. He was left wondering if she had been a figment of his imagination. Joe was there, and the lean messenger. The doctor was back, there was light and darkness and a whirl of movement, and warm water on his skin, and sharp pain in his hand. 

He remembered a flare of pain in his head, then darkness, pain again, then light. His coat was gone, the tin clutched in his hands rather than the breast pocket. His hair was wet again. There were voices, conversations, movement and touches, all of which he tried to follow. Ultimately failing, the world faded to grey and then to the black of sleep.

And then, some time later, he opened his eyes and it was quiet. A weariness dragged at his mind, but he blinked and found that the pressure in his skull was manageable, at least, dulled by a suffusing numb warmth that had invaded his limbs and head. He half wanted to sit, to get up and see where he was, but exhaustion still lay heavy across his body, and he didn’t have the strength to fight it.

He took a long moment to breathe, in and out, over and over. Thomas Blake was alive. The past few hours had been more moments of muddled confusion, but that at least was clear in his head. The memory of his hands, his face, his smile- they were too clear and strong to be a lie. Come what may, at least Tom hadn’t died in his arms in a lonely farmyard. At least that was the truth. 

And of course it was. When he rolled his head to the side, he could make out Tom's sleepy form in his own bed, closed eyes just visible above the lumpy heap of pillows. It was as if he’d always been there, as if he’d just woken from some horrible dream. 

“Hello, Tom.” Across the space between the beds, a pair of blue eyes opened, blinked slowly. 

“Hey, Scho.” His voice was muffled by the pillow, and came out thin and weak, but it was Tom’s voice all the same, and his head had cleared just enough for it to seem real, for him to really appreciate it. 

“You’re alive.” He hadn’t phrased it as such, but it was a question. A last assurance to chase away all doubt.

Had he been stronger, the little huff Tom responded with would have been a laugh. “I think so.”

“That’s good.” Speaking made his own head spin, so he settled for smiling as broadly as he could.

“Well, I saw my brother before, so either you did make it, or we’re all dead.”

It was too close to what could have been true for him to laugh at that. “I feel like I died, more than once.”

He was grinning, but the worry behind Tom’s smile was plain as day. He was never good at hiding his emotions, Will thought. Always wore them like armor, like they could protect him. “Didn’t do anything stupid while I was gone, did you?”

“Just enough to get back at you for saving me back in the trench.”

“You’ll have to tell me what happened. Everything.” The eagerness in his voice was striking, even as his face was lost from view as Will settled back with a sigh.

“All in good time. And worth the wait, too. A shade more interesting than your stories, I’ll wager.” 

That brought a small laughter that made his heart jump to hear. “Trying to get your medal back? Jealous of me, aren’t you?”

“That doesn’t matter.” 

His weary voice sounded weak and quiet, but Tom must have sensed his sincerity. He shuffled onto his side, wincing slightly and glancing at his belly with a jolt that made Will’s stomach drop, but when he settled his gaze was soft.

“I’ll take it, if you don’t want it. Unless you want to sell it for another bottle of wine.”

“Wouldn’t that be a celebration.” He let his eyes go unfocused, concentrating on nothing but Tom’s presence. The curtain around the two beds fluttered ever so slightly in some quiet wind, and if he let his thoughts relax he could hear the hum of voices beyond, the tread of footsteps, the rattle of cars and work and all sorts of business. 

“We could get my brother to get us something.” His voice had dropped to a whisper, and he lay there with his arm hanging over the side of the bed. “Something to congratulate ourselves with.”

Will let himself chuckle softly, murmuring a soft response. He let his arm fall too, dropping into the empty air. It was warmer than it had been, but cooler than beneath his sheets and the skin on his foremar prickled. 

“I think we deserve to be happy, Tom.”

“Hmm.” He sighed, and let his eyes slide open ever so slightly. It didn’t hurt. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Their fingers brushed: tentative, warm, gentle. A question and a simultaneous answer. An unspoken truth. At last, his whirling thoughts calmed and slowed and he breathed deep, letting his eyes sink closed. The peace of the moment was soothing on his mind, and that was a small comfort. The warm weight in his hand, however, was something far greater: something that spread a pleasant stillness through every inch of his being until it was just him and Thomas Blake, and their slow, steady breathing and the place where their bodies touched.


End file.
